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ODE ON intimations! 


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OF IMMORTALITY 


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AND OTHER POEMS | 


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BY 


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WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 




ir/TH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


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AND NOTES 

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INTIM iiONS OF IMMORTALITY 

FROM RPuCOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD 
AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND NOTES 



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ALICE FELL ; 

OR, POVERTY. 

Written to gratify Mr. Grahame, of Glasgow, brother of the 
author of The Sabbath, He was a zealous coadjutor of Mr. 
Clarkson, and a man of ardent humanity. The incident had 
happened to himself, and he urged me to put it into verse for 
humanity's sake. The humbleness, meanness, if you like, of 
the subject, together with the homely mode of treating it, 
brought upon me a world of ridicule by the small critics, so 
that in policy I excluded it from many editions of my poems, 
till it was restored at the request of some of my friends, in par- 
ticular my son-in-law, Edward Quillinan. 

The post-boy drove with fierce career, 

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned, 

When, as we hurried on, my ear 

Was smitten with a startling sound. 

5 As if the wind blew many ways, 
I heard the sound, — and more and more ; 
It seemed to follow with the chaise, 
And still I heard it as before. 

At length I to the boy called out. 
10 He stopped his horses at the word, 
But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout, 
Nor aught else like it, could be heard. 

The boy then smacked his whip, and fast 
The horses scampered through the rain ; 



10 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

15 But, hearing soon upon the blast 
The cry, I bade him halt again. 

Forthwith alighting on the ground, 
*' Whence comes," said I, "this piteous moan?" 
And there a little girl I found, 
20 Sitting behind the chaise, alone. 

" My cloak I " no other word she spake, 
But loud and bitterly she wept. 
As if her innocent heart would break ; 
And down from off her seat she leapt. 

25 "What ails you, child?" She sobbed, "Look 
here ! " 
I saw it in the wdieel entangled, 
A weather-beaten rag as e'er 
From any garden scarecrow dangled. 

There, twisted between nave and spoke, 
30 It hung, nor could at once be freed ; 
But our joint pains unloosed the cloak, 
A miserable rag indeed ! 

" And whither are you going, child. 
To-night, along these lonesome ways ? " 
35 " To Durham," answered she, half wild. 
" Then come with me into the chaise." 

Insensible to all relief 
Sat the poor girl, and forth did send 
Sob after sob, as if her grief 
40 Could never, never have an end. 



LUCY GRAY. 11 

"My child, in Durham do you dwell? " 
She checked herself in her distress, 
And said, " My name is Alice Fell ; 
I 'm fatherless and motherless. 

45 " And I to Durham, Sir, belong." 
Again, as if the thought would choke 
Her very heart, her grief grew strong ; 
And all was for her tattered cloak ! 

The chaise drove on ; our journey's end 
50 Was nigh ; and, sitting by my side, 
As if she had lost her only friend 
She wept, nor would be pacified. 

Up to the tavern door we post ; 
Of Alice and her grief I told ; 
55 And I gave money to the host. 
To buy a new cloak for the old. 

" And let it be of duffel gray. 
As warm a cloak as man can sell ! " 
Proud creature was she the next day, 
60 The little orphan, Alice Fell ! 



LUCY GRAY; 

OR, SOLITUDE. 

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray : 
And, when I crossed the wild, 
I chanced to see, at break of day, 
The solitary child. 



12 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

5 No mate, no comrade Lucy knew ; 
She dwelt on a wide moor, — 
The sweetest thmg that ever grew 
Beside a human door ! 

You yet may spy the fawn at play, 
10 The hare upon the green ; 
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray 
Will never more be seen. 

" To-night will be a stormy night, — 
You to the town must go ; 
15 And take a lantern, Child, to light 
Your mother through the snow." 

" That, Father ! will I gladly do : 
'T is scarcely afternoon, — 
The minster-clock has just struck two, 
20 And yonder is the moon! " 

At this the father raised his hook, 
And snapped a fagot-band ; 
He plied his work ; — and Lucy took 
The lantern in her hand. 

25 Not blither is the mountain roe : 
With many a wanton stroke 
Her feet disperse the powdery snow, 
That rises up like smoke. 

The storm came on before its time : 
30 She wandered up and down ; 
And many a hill did Lucy climb : 
But never reached the town. 



LUCY GRAY. 13 

The wretched parents all that night 
Went shouting far and wide ; 
35 But there was neither sound nor sight 
To serve them for a guide. 

At daybreak on the hill they stood 
That overlooked the moor ; 
And thence they saw the bridge of wood, 
40 A furlong from their door. 

They wept, — and, turning homeward, cried, 
" In heaven we all shall meet ; " — 
When in the snow the mother spied 
The print of Lucy's feet. 

45 Then downwards from the steep hill's edge 
They tracked the footmarks small ; 
And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, 
And by the long stone wall ; 

And then an open field they crossed : 
50 The marks were still the same ; 
They tracked them on, nor ever lost ; 
And to the bridge they came. 

They followed from the snowy bank 
Those footmarks, one by one, . 
55 Into the middle of the plank ; 
And further there were none ! 

— Yet some maintain that to this day 
She is a living child ; 
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray 
60 Upon the lonesome wild. 



14 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

O'er rough and smooth she trips along, 
And never looks behind ; 
And sings a solitary song 
That whistles in the wind. 



WE ARE SEVEN. 

The little girl who is the heroine I met within the area of Go- 
derich Castle, in the year 1793. I composed it while walking iu 
the grove at Alfoxden. My friends will not deem it too trifling 
to relate, that while walking to and fro I composed the last 
stanza first, having begun with the last line. When it was all 
but finished, I came in and recited it to Mr. Coleridge and my 
sister, and said, " A prefatory stanza must be added, and I should 
sit down to our little tea-meal with greater pleasure if my task 
was finished." I mentioned in substance what I wished to be 
expressed, and Coleridge immediately threw off the stanza 

thus : — 

" A little child, dear brother Jem." 

I objected to the rhyme, " dear brother Jem," as being ludicrous ; 
but we all enjoyed the joke of hitching in our friend James 
Tobin's name. 

A SIMPLE Child, 



That lightly draws its breath, 
And feels its life in every limb. 
What should it know of death ? 

5 1 met a little cottage girl : 
She was eight years old, she said ; 
Her hair was thick with many a curl 
That clustered round her head. 

She had a rustic, woodland air, 
10 And she was wildly clad : 
Her eyes were fair, and very fair ; — - 
Her beauty made me glad. 



WE ARE SEVEN. 15 

" Sisters and brothers, little Maid, 
How many may you be ? " 
15 " How many ? Seven in all," she said. 
And wondering looked at me. 

" And where are they ? I pray you tell." 
She answered, " Seven are we ; 
And two of us at Conway dwell, 
20 And two are gone to sea. 

" Two of us in the churchyard lie, 
My sister and my brother ; 
And, in the churchyard cottage, I 
Dwell near them with my mother." 

25 " You say that two at Conway dwell, 
And two are gone to sea, 
Yet ye are seven ! I pray you tell, 
Sweet Maid, how this may be." 

Then did the little Maid reply, 
30 " Seven boys and girls are we ; 
Two of us in the churchyard lie, 
Beneath the churchyard tree." 

" You run about, my little Maid, 
Your limbs they are alive ; 
35 If two are in the churchyard laid 
Then ye are only five." 

*' Their graves are green, they may be seen," 
The little Maid replied, 

" Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, 
40 And they are side by side. 



16 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

" My stockings there I often knit, 
My kerchief there I hein ; 
And there npon the ground I sit 
And sing a song to them. 

45 " And often after sunset, Sir, 
When it is light and fair, 
I take my little porringer, 
And eat my supper there. 

" The first that died was sister Jane ; 
50 In bed she moaning lay, 
Till God released her of her pain ; 
And then she went away. 

" So in the churchyard she was laid ; 
And, when the grass was dry, 
55 Together round her grave we played. 
My brother John and I. 

" And when the ground was white with snow 
And I could run and slide, 
My brother John was forced to go, 
60 And he lies by her side." 

" How many are you, then," said I, 
" If they two are in heaven ? " 
Quick was the little Maid's reply, 
'' O Master ! we are seven." 

65 " But they are dead ; those two are dead ! 
Their spirits are in heaven ! " 
'T was throwing words away ; for still 
The little Maid would have her will. 
And said, '' Nay, we are seven I " 



THE PET LAMB. 17 

THE PET LAMB. 

A PASTORAL. 

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink ; 
I heard a voice ; it said, " Drink, pretty creature, 

drink ! " 
And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied 
A snow-white mountain-lamb with a maiden at its 

side. 

6 Nor sheep nor kine were near ; the lamb was all 

alone, 
And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone ; 
With one knee on the grass did the little maiden 

kneel. 
While to that mountain-lamb she gave its evening 

meal. 

The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper 

took, 
10 Seemed to feast with head and ears ; and his tail 

with pleasure shook. 
" Drink, pretty creature, drink ! " she said, in such 

a tone 
That I almost received her heart into my own. 

'T was little Barbara Lewthwaite, a cliild of beauty 

rare ! 
I watched them with delight, they were a lovely 

pair. 
15 Now with her empty can the maiden turned away. 
But ere ten yards were gone, her footsteps did she 

stay. 



J^ WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Right towards the lamb she looked ; and from a 

shady place 
I unobserved could see the workings of her face : 
If nature to her tongue could measured numbers 

bring, 
20 Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little maid might 

sing : — 

" What ails thee, young one ? what ? Why pull so 

at thy cord ? 
Is it not well with thee? well both for bed and 

board ? 
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can 

be; 
Rest, little young one, rest ; what is 't that aileth 

thee? 

25 " What is it thou would st seek ? What is wanting 

to thy heart ? 
Thy limbs, are they not strong ? And beautiful 

thou art : 
This grass is tender grass ; these flowers they have 

no peers ; 
And that green cord all day is rustling in thy ears ! 

" If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy wool- 
len chain, 
30 This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst 
gain; 

For rain and mountain -storms ! the like thou need'st 
not fear, 

The rain and storm are things that scarcely can 
come here. 



THE PET LAMB. 19 

" Rest, little young one, rest ; tliou hast forgot tlie 

day 
When my father found thee first in places far 

away ; 
35 Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned 

by none. 
And thy mother from thy side for evermore was 

gone. 

" He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought 

thee home : 
A blessed day for thee ! then whither wouldst thou 

roam ? 
A faithful nurse thou hast ; the dam that did thee 

yean 
40 Upon the mountain - tops no kinder could have 

been. 

"Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought 

thee in this can 
Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran ; 
And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with 

dew, 
I bring thee draughts of milk, — warm milk it is 

and new. 

45 " Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they 

are now. 
Then I '11 yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the 

plough ; 
My playmate thou shalt be ; and when the wind is 

cold. 
Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy 

fold. 



20 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

" It will not, will not rest ! — Poor creature, can it be 
50 That 't is thy mother's heart which is working so in 

thee? 
Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear, 
And dreams of things which thou canst neither see 

nor hear. 



" Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and 

fair ! 
I 've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come 

there ; 
55 The little brooks that seem all pastime and all play- 
When they are angry roar like lions for their prey. 

" Here thou need'st not dread the raven in the sky ; 
Night and day thou art safe, — our cottage is hard 

by. 
Why bleat so after me ? Why pull so at thy chain ? 
60 Sleep, — and at break of day I will come to thee 
again ! " 

— As homeward through the lane I went with lazy 

feet. 
This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat ; 
And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line. 
That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was 

mine. 

c5 Again, and once again, did I repeat the song ; 
" Nay," said I, " more than half to the damsel must 

belong. 
For she looked with such a look, and she spake 

with such a tone. 
That I almost received her heart into my own." 



THE IDLE SHEPHERD-BOYS. 21 



THE IDLE SHEPHERD-BOYS; 

OR, DUNGEON-GHYLL FORCE.^ 
A PASTORAL. 

The valley rings with mirth and joy ; 
Among the hills the echoes play 
A never, never ending song, 
To welcome in the May. 
I s The magpie chatters with delight ; 
The monntain raven's youngling brood 
Have left the mother and the nest ; 
And they go rambling east and west 
In search of their own food ; 
10 Or through the glittering vapors dart 
In very wantonness of heart. 

Beneath a rock, upon the grass, 
Two boys are sitting in the sun ; 
Their work, if any work they have, 

15 Is out of mind, — or clone. 
On pipes of sycamore they play 
The fragments of a Christmas hymn ; 
Or with that plant which in our dale 
We call stag-horn, or fox's tail, 

20 Their rusty hats they trim : 
And thus, as happy as the day, 

, Those shepherds wear the time away. 

Along the river's stony marge 

The sand-lark chants a joyous song ; 

1 Ghyll, ill the dialect of Cumberland and Westmoreland, is 
a short, and for the most part a steep, narrow valley, with a 
stream running through it. Force is the word universally em- 
ployed in these dialects for waterfall. — W. W. 



22 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

25 The thrush is busy in the wood, 
And carols loud and strong^. 
A thousand lambs are on the rocks, 
All newly born ! both earth and sky 
Keep jubilee, and more than all, 

30 Those boys with their green coronal ; 
They never hear the cry. 
That plaintive cry ! which uj) the hill 
Conies from the depth of Dungeon-Ghyll. 

Said Walter, leaping from the ground, 
35 " Down to the stump of yon old yew 

We '11 for our whistles run a race." 

Away the shepherds flew ; 

They leapt, — they ran, — and when they came 

Right opposite to Dungeon-Ghyll, 
40 Seeing that he should lose the prize, 

" Stop ! " to his comrade Walter cries. 

James stopj^ed with no good will : 

Said Walter then, exulting, " Here 

You '11 find a task for half a year. 

45 " Cross, if you dare, where I shall cross, — 

Come on, and tread where I shall tread." 

The other took him at his word, 

And followed as he led. 

It was a spot which you may see 
1 50 If ever you to Langdale go ; 

Into the chasm a mighty block 

Hath fallen, and made a bridge of rock ; 

The gulf is deep below ; 

And, in a basin black and small, 
55 Receives a lofty waterfall. 



THE IDLE SHEPHERD-BOYS. 23 

With staff in hand across the cleft 

The challenger pursued his march ; 

And now, all eyes and feet, hath gained 

The middle of the arch. 
60 When list ! he hears a piteous moan. 

Again ! — his heart within him dies ; 

His pulse is stopped, his breath is lost, 

He totters, pallid as a ghost, 

And, looking down, espies 
65 A lamb, that in the pool is pent 

Within that black and frightful rent. 

The lamb had slipped into the stream, 

And safe without a bruise or wound 

The cataract had borne him down 
70 Into the gulf profound. 

His dam had seen him when he fell. 

She saw him down the torrent borne ; 

And, while with all a mother's love 

She from the lofty rocks above 
75 Sent forth a cry forlorn. 

The lamb, still swimming round and round, 

Made answer in that plaintive sound. 

When he had learnt what thing it was 

That sent this rueful cry, I ween 
80 The boy recovered heart, and told 

The sight which he had seen. 

Both gladly now deferred their task ; 

Nor was there wanting other aid : 

A poet, one who loves the brooks 
85 Far better than the sages' books, 

By chance had hither strayed ; 

And there the helpless lamb he found 

By those hugh rocks encompassed round. 



24 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

He drew it from the troubled pool, 
90 And brought it forth into the light : 
The shepherds met him with his charge, 
An unexpected sight ! 
Into their arms the lamb they took, 
Whose life and limbs the flood had spared ; 
95 Then up the steep ascent they hied. 
And placed him at his mother's side ; 
And gently did the bard 
Those idle shepherd-boys upbraid, 
And bade them better mind their trade. 



RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 

There's George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and 

Reginald Shore, 
Three rosy-cheeked schoolboys, the highest not 

more 
Than the heisrht of a counsellor's baof. 
To the top of Great How ^ did it please them to 

climb : 
5 And there they built up, without mortar or lime, 
A Man on the peak of the crag. 

They built him of stones gathered up as they lay ; 
They built him and christened him all in one day. 
An urchin both vigorous and hale ; 
10 And so without scruple they called him Ralph 
Jones. 

4. Great Ho"w is a single and conspicuous hill, which rises 
towards the foot of Thirlinere, on the western side of the beauti- 
ful dale of Legberthwaite, along the hign road between Keswick 
and Ambleside. — W. W. 



THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. 25 

Now Ealph is renowned for the length of his bones ; 
The Magog of Legberthwaite dale. 

Just half a week after, the wind sallied forth, 
And, in anger or merriment, out of the north, 
15 Coming on with a terrible pother, 
From the peak of the crag blew the giant away. 
And what did these schoolboys ? — The very next 

day 
They went and they built up another. 

— Some little I 've seen of blind boisterous works 
20 By Christian disturbers more savage than Turks, 
Spirits busy to do and undo : 
At rememberance whereof my blood sometimes will 

flag; 
Then, light-hearted boys, to the top of the crag ; 
And I '11 build up a giant with you. 



THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN. 

This arose out of my observation of the affecting music of 
these birds, hanging in this way in the London streets, during 
the freshness and stillness of the spring morning. 

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight 

appears, 
Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for 

three years : 
Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard 
In the silence of morning the song of the bird. 

5 'T is a note of enchantment ; what ails her ? She sees 
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees ; 



26 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Bright volumes of vapor through Lothbury glide, 
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. 

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale, 
10 Down which she so often has trij^ped with her pail, 
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's. 
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. 

She looks, and her heart is in heaven : but they fade, 
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade : 
15 The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise. 
And the colors have all passed away from her eyes ! 



POWER OF MUSIC. 

An Orpheus ! an Orpheus ! yes, Faith may grow 

bold, 
And take to herself all the wonders of old ; — 
Near the stately Pantheon you '11 meet with the 

same 
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its 

name. 

5 His station is there ; and he works on the crowd, 
He sways them with harmony merry and loud ; 
He fills with his power all their hearts to the 

brim, — 
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him ? 

7. Lothbury and Cheapside are streets in the heart of the 
city of London. 

1. Orpheus was the hero in Greek mythology whose music 
was so powerful that even the stones fell into place in building 
when he played on his lyre. 



POWER OF MUSIC. 27 

What an eager assembly ! what an empire is this ! 
10 The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss ; 
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest ; 
And the guilt-burdened soul is no longer opprest. 

As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the 

night, 
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light ; 
15 It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack, 
And the pale-visaged baker's, with basket on back. 

That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste, — 
What matter ! he 's caught, — and his time runs to 

waste ; 
The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the 

fret ; 
20 And the half -breathless lamp-lighter, — he 's in the 

net! 

The porter sits down on the weight which he bore ; 
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store ; — 
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease ; 
She sees the musician, 't is all that she sees ! 

25 He stands, backed by the wall ; — he abates not his 

din ; — 
His hat gives him vigor, with boons dropping in. 
From the old and the young, from the poorest ; and 

there ! 
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare. 

Oh, blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand 
30 Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a 
band! 



28 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

I am glad for him, blind as he is ! — all the while 
If they si3eak 't is to praise, and they praise with a 
smile. 



That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height, 
Not an inch of his body is free from delight ; 
35 Can he keep himself still, if he would ? Oh, not 
he! 
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree. 

Mark that cripple who leans on his crutch ; like a 

tower 
That long has leaned forward, leans hour after 

hour ! 
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound, 
40,While she dandles the babe in her arms to the 

sound. 

Now, coaches and chariots ! roar on like a stream ; 
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream : 
They are deaf to your murmurs, — they care not 

for you. 
Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue ! 

TO A BUTTERFLY. 

FIRST POEM. 

My sister and I were parted immediately after the death of 
our mother, who died in March, 1778, both being very young. 

Stay near me ; do not take thy flight ! 
A little longer stay in sight ! 
Much converse do I find in thee, 
Historian of my infancy ! 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 29 

5 Float near me ; do not yet depart ! 
Dead times revive in thee : 
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art ! 
A solemn image to my heart, 
My father's family ! 

10 Oh ! pleasant, pleasant were the days, 

The time, when, in our childish plays, 

My sister Emmeline and I 

Together chased the butterfly ! 

A very hunter did I rush 
15 Upon the prey : — with leaps and springs 

I followed on from brake to bush ; 

But she, God love her ! feared to brush 

The dust from off its wings. 



SECOND POEM. 

I 'vE watched you now a full half hour 
Self -poised upon that yellow flower ; 
And, little Butterfly ! indeed 
I know not if you sleep or feed. 
5 How motionless ! — not frozen seas 
More motionless ! — and then 
What joy awaits you, when the breeze 
Hath found you out among the trees, 
And calls you forth again ! 

10 This plot of orchard-ground is ours ; 

My trees they are, my sister's flowers : 

Here rest your wings when they are weary, 

Here lodge as in a sanctuary ! 

Come often to us, fear no wrong ; 
15 Sit near us on the bousrh ! 



30 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

We '11 talk of sunshine and of song, 
And summer days, when we were young ; 
Sweet childish days, that were as long 
As twenty days are now. 



THE SPARROW'S NEST. 

Behold, within the leafy shade. 
Those bright blue eggs together laid! 
On me the chance-discovered sight 
Gleamed like a vision of delight. 
5 I started, — seeming to espy 
The home and sheltered bed. 
The sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by 
My father's house, in wet or dry, 
My sister Emmeline and I 
10 Together visited. 

She looked at it and seemed to fear it ; 

Dreading, tho' wishing, to be near it : 

Such heart was in her, being then 

A little prattler among men. 
15 The blessing of my later years 

Was with me when a boy : 

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears ; 

And humble cares, and delicate fears ; 

A heart, the fountain of sweet tears ; 
20 And love, and thought, and joy. 



TO A SKYLARK. 31 



TO A SKYLARK. 



FIRST POEM. 



Up with me ! up with me into the clouds ! 

For thy song, Lark, is strong ; 
Up with me ! up with me into the clouds ! 
Singing, singing, 
5 With clouds and sky about thee ringing, 
Lift me, guide me till I find 
That spot which seems so to thy mind ! 

I have walked through wildernesses dreary, 

And to-day my heart is weary ; 
10 Had I now the wings of a Faery, 

Up to thee would I fly. 

There is madness about thee, and joy divine 

In that song of thine ; 

Lift me, guide me high and high 
15 To thy banqueting-place in the sky. 

Joyous as morning. 

Thou art laughing and scorning ; 

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest, 

And, though little troubled with sloth, 
20 Drunken Lark ! thou wouldst be loth 

To be such a traveller as I. 

Happy, happy liver. 

With a soul as strong as a mountain river 

Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, 
25 Joy and jollity be with us both ! 

20. So we sometimes say that one is intoxicated with joy. 



32 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Alas ! my journey, rugged and uneven, 
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind ; 
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, 
As full of gladness and as free of heaven, 
30 1, with my fate contented, will plod on. 
And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is 
done. 

SECOND POEM. 

Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? 
5 Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will. 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still. 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
A privacy of glorious light is thine ; 
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 
10 Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; 
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; 
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. 



TO A NIGHTINGALE. 

O Nightingale ! thou surely art 
A creature of a " fiery heart : " — 
These notes of thine, — they pierce and pierce : 
Tumultuous harmony and fierce ! 
5 Thou sing'st as if the God of wine 
Had helped thee to a Valentine ; 
A song in mockery and despite 
Of shades, and dews, and silent night ; 



TO THE CUCKOO. 33 

And sbeacly bliss, and all the loves 
10 Now sleeping in these peaceful groves. 

I heard a stock-dove sing or say 

His homely tale, this very day : 

His voice was buried among trees, 

Yet to be come at by the breeze : 
15 He did not cease ; but cooed — and cooed ; 

And somewhat pensively he wooed : 

He sang of love, with quiet blending, 

Slow to begin, and never ending ; 

Of serious faith, and inward glee ; 
20 That was the song, — the song for me ! 



TO THE CUCKOO. 

BLITHE New-comer ! I have heard, 

1 hear thee and rejoice. 

O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice ? 

5 While I am lying on the grass 
Thy twofold shout I hear, 
Prom hill to hill it seems to pass. 
At once far off, and near. 

Though babbling only to the vale, 
10 Of sunshine and of flowers. 
Thou bringest unto me a tale 
Of visionary hours. 

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring ! 
Even yet thou art to me 
15 No bird, but an invisible thing, 
A voice, a mystery ; 



34 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

The same whom in my schoolboy days 
I listened to ; that cry 
Which made me look a thousand ways, 
20 In bush, and tree, and sky. 

To seek thee did I often rove 
Through woods and on the green ; 
And thou wert still a hope, a love ; 
Still longed for, never seen, 

25 And I can listen to thee yet ; 
Can lie upon the plain 
And listen, till I do beget 
That golden time again. 

O blessed Bird ! the earth we pace 
so Again appears to be 
An unsubstantial, faery place ; 
That is fit home for thee ! 



SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. 

She was a phantom of delight 

When first she gleamed upon my sight ; 

A lovely apparition, sent 

To be a moment's ornament ; 
5 Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ; 

Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair ; 

But all things else about her drawn 

From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 

A dancing shape, an image gay, 
10 To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 



THREE YEARS SHE GREW. 35 

I saw her upon nearer view, 

A sjDirit, yet a woman too ! 

Her household motions light and free, 

And steps of virgin liberty ; 
15 A countenance in which did meet 

Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 

A creature not too bright or good 

For human nature's daily food ; 

For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
20 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 

And now I see with eye serene 

The very pulse of the machine ; 

A being breathing thoughtful breath, 

A traveller between life and death ; 
25 The reason firm, the temperate will. 

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 

A perfect woman, nobly planned. 

To warn, to comfort, and command ; 

And yet a sjjirit still, and bright 
30 With something of angelic light. 



THREE YEARS SHE GREW. 

Three years she grew in sun and shower 
Then Nature said, " A lovelier flower 
On earth was never sown ; 
This child I to myself will take ; 
5 She shall be mine, and I will make 
A lady of my own. 

" Myself will to my darling be 
Both law and impulse : and with me 



36 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

The girl, in rock and plain, 
10 In earth and heaven, in giade and bower, 
Shall feel an overseeing power 
To kindle or restrain. 

"She shall be sportive as the fawn 
That wild with glee across the lawn 
15 Or up the mountain springs ; 
And hers shall be the breathing balm, 
And hers the silence and the calm 
Of mute, insensate things. 

" The floating clouds their state shall lend 
20 To her ; for her the willow bend ; 
Nor shall she fail to see, 
Even in the motions of the storm, 
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 
By silent sympathy. 

25 " The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
In many a secret place 

Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 

30 Shall pass into her face. 

" And vital feelings of delight 
Shall rear her form to stately height, 
Her virgin bosom swell ; 
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 
35 While she and I together live 
Here in this happy dell." 



A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL. 37 

Thus Nature spake. — The work was done. — 
How soon my Lucy's race was run ! 
She died, and left to me 
40 This heath, this cahn and quiet scene ; 
The memory of what has been, 
And never more will be. 



SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS. 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove, 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 

And very few to love : 

5 A violet by a mossy stone 
Half hidden from the eye ! 
Fair as a star, when only one 
Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know 
10 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
But she is in her grave, and oh ! 
The difference to me ! 



A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL. 

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal ; 

I had no human fears : 
She seemed a thing that could not feel 

The touch of earthly years. 



38 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

5 No motion has she now, no force ; 
She neither hears nor sees ; 
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, 
With rocks, and stones, and trees. 



I TRAVELLED AMONG UN'KNOWN MEN. 

I TRAVELLED among unknown men, 

In lands beyond the sea ; 
Nor, England ! did I know till then 

What love I bore to thee. 

5 'T is past, that melancholy dream ! 
Nor will I quit thy shore 
A second time ; for still I seem 
To love thee more and more. 

Among thy mountains did I feel 
10 The joy of my desire ; 
And she I cherished turned her wheel 
Beside an English fire. 

Thy morning showed, thy nights concealed, 
The bowers where Lucy played ; 
15 And thine too is the last green field 
That Lucy's eyes surveyed. 



THE DAFFODILS. 



THE DAFFODILS. 



I WANDEEED lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hillsy 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils ; 
s Beside the lake, beneath the trees. 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze- 
Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 
io Along the margin of a bay : 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced ; but they 
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee : 
15 A poet could not but be gay. 
In such a jocund company : 
I gazed, — and gazed, — but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brouoht: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 
20 In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude ; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 



40 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 



TO THE DAISY. 

" Her 1 divine skill taught me this. 
That from everything I saw 
I could some instruction draw, 
And raise pleasure to the height 
Through the meanest object's sight. 
By the murmur of a spring. 
Or the least bough's rustelling ; 
By a Daisy whose leaves spread 
Shut when Titan goes to bed ; 
Or a shady bash or tree ; 
She could more infuse in me, 
Than all Nature's beauties can 
In some other wiser man.'' 

G. Wither, 

In youth from rock to rock I went, 
From hill to hill, in discontent 
Of pleasure high and turbulent, 

Most pleased when most uneasy ; 
5 But now my own delights I make, — 
My thirst at every rill can slake. 
And gladly Nature's love partake. 

Of thee, sweet Daisy ! 

Thee Winter in the garland wears 
10 That thinly decks his few gray hairs ; 
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs, 

That she may sun thee ; 
Whole Summer-fields are thine by right ; 
And Autumn, melancholy wight ! 
15 Doth in thy crimson head delight 
When rains are on thee. 

In shoals and bands, a morrice train. 
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane ; 
Pleased at his greeting thee again ; 
20 Yet nothing daunted, 

1 His Muse. 



TO THE DAISY. 41 

Nor grieved, if thou be set at naught : 
And oft alone in nooks remote 
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, 
When such are wanted. 

25 Be violets in their sacred mews 
The flowers the wanton zephyrs choose ; 
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews 

Her head impearling ; 
Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, 
30 Yet hast not gone without thy fame ; 
Thou art indeed by many a claim 
The poet's darling. 

If to a rock from rains he fly. 

Or, some bright day of April sky, 
35 Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie 
Near the green holly. 

And wearily at length should fare ; 

He needs but look about, and there 

Thou art ! — a friend at hand, to scare 
40 His melancholy. 

A hundred times, by rock or bower. 
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, 
Have I derived from thy sweet power 

Some apprehension ; 
45 Some steady love ; some brief delight ; 
Some memory that had taken flight ; 
Some chime of fancy wrong or right ; 

Or stray invention. 

If stately passions in me burn, 
50 And one chance look to thee should turn, 



42 . WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

I drink out of an humbler urn 

A lowlier pleasure ; 
The homely sympathy that heeds 
The common life, our nature breeds; 
55 A wisdom fitted to the needs 

Of hearts at leisure. 

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray, 
When thou art up, alert and gay, 
Then, cheerful Flower ! my spirits play 
60 With kindred gladness : 
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest 
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest 
Hath often eased my pensive breast 
Of careful sadness. 

65 And all day long I number yet, 
All seasons through, another debt. 
Which I, wherever thou art met, 

To thee am owing ; 
An instinct call it, a blind sense ; 
70 A happy, genial influence, 
Coming one knows not how, nor whence. 
Nor whither going. 

Child of the Year ! that round dost run 
Thy pleasant course, — when day 's begun 

75 As ready to salute the sun 
As lark or leveret. 
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain ; 
Nor be less dear to future men 
Than in old time ; — thou not in vain 

80 Art Nature's favorite. 

80. See, in Chancer and the elder poets, the honors formerly 
paid to this flower. — W. W. 



TO THE SAME FLOWER. 43 



TO THE SAME FLOWER. 

With little here to do or see 

Of things that in the great world be, 

Daisy ! again I talk to thee, 

For thou art worthy, 
5 Thou unassuming Commonplace 
Of Nature, with that homely face. 
And yet with something of a grace. 

Which Love makes for thee ! 

Oft on the dappled turf at ease 
10 1 sit, and play with similes, 
Loose types of things through all degrees, 

Thoughts of thy raising : 
And many a fond and idle name 
I give to thee, for praise or blame, 
15 As is the humor of the game, 
While I am gazing. 

A nun demure, of lowly port : 
Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, 
In thy simplicity the sport 
20 Of all temptations ; 
A queen in crown of rubies drest ; 
A starveling in a scanty vest ; 
Are all, as seems to suit thee best. 
Thy appellations. 

25 A little Cyclops, with one eye 
Staring to threaten and defy, 
That thought comes next, — and instantly 
The freak is over. 



44 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

The shape will vanish, — and behold 
30 A silver shield with boss of gold, 
That spreads itself, some faery bold 
In fight to cover ! 

I see thee glittering from afar, — 
And then thou art a pretty star ; 

35 Not quite so fair as many are 
In heaven above thee ! 
Yet like a star, with glittering crest, 
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest ; — 
May peace come never to his nest, 

40 Who shall reprove thee ! 

Bright Floicer ! for by that name at last, 
When all my reveries are past, 
I call thee, and to that cleave fast, 

Sweet, silent creature ! 
45 That breath'st with me in sun and air, 
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair 
My heart with gladness, and a share 

Of thy meek nature ! 

TO THE SMALL CELANDINE. 

It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so early in the 
spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such pro- 
fusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. 
What adds much to the interest that attends it is its habit of 
shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of 
light and temperature of the air. 

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies. 
Let them live upon their praises ; 
Long as there 's a sun that sets. 
Primroses will have their glory ; 



TO THE SMALL CELANDINE. 45 

5 Long as there are violets, 
They will have a place in story : 
There 's a flower that shall be mine. 
'T is the little Celandine. 

Eyes of some men travel far 
10 For the finding of a star ; 

Up and down the heavens they go, 

Men that keep a mighty rout ! 

I 'm as great as they, I trow, 

Since the day I found thee out, 
15 Little flower ! — I '11 make a stir, 

Like a sage astronomer. 

Modest, yet withal an elf 
Bold, and lavish of thyself ; 
Since we needs must first have met, 
20 1 have seen thee, high and low, 
Thirty years or more, and yet 
'T was a face I did not know : 
Thou hast now, go where I may, 
Fifty greetings in a day. 

25 Ere a leaf is on a bush, 

In the time before the thrush 

Has a thought about her nest, 

Thou wilt come with half a call. 

Spreading out thy glossy breast 
30 Like a careless prodigal ; 

Telling tales about the sun, 

When we 've little warmth, or none. 

Poets, vain men in their mood ! 
Travel with the multitude : 
8. Common pilewort. 



46 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

35 Never heed them ; I aver 
That they all are wanton wooers ; 
But the thrifty cottager, 
Who stirs little out of doors, 
Joys to spy thee near at home ; 

40 Spring is coming, thou art come ! 

Comfort have thou of thy merit. 
Kindly, unassuming spirit ! 
Careless of thy neighborhood, 
Thou dost show thy pleasant face 
45 On the moor, and in the wood. 
In the lane ; — there 's not a place, 
Howsoever mean it be. 
But 't is good enough for thee. 

Ill befall the yellow flowers, 
50 Children of the flaring hours ! 

Buttercups, that will be seen. 

Whether we will see or no ; 

Others, too, of lofty mien ; 

They have done as worldlings do, 
55 Taken praise that should be thine. 

Little, humble Celandine. 

Prophet of delight and mirth, 
Ill-requited upon earth ; 
Herald of a mighty band, 
60 Of a joyous train ensuing. 
Serving at my heart's command, 
Tasks that are no tasks renewing, 
I will sing, as doth behoove. 
Hymns in praise of what I love ! 



TO MY SISTER. 47 



TO MY SISTER, 



It is the first mild day of March : 
Each miuute sweeter than before. 
The redbreast sings from the tall larch 
That stands beside our door. 

5 There is a blessing in the air, 
Which seems a sense of joy to yield 
To the bare trees, and mountains bare, 
And grass in the green field. 

My sister ! ('t is a wish of mine,) 
10 Now that our morning meal is done, 
Make haste, your morning task resign ; 
Come forth and feel the sun. 

Edward will come with you ; — and, pray. 
Put on with speed your woodland dress ; 
15 And bring no book : for this one day 
We '11 give to idleness. 

No joyless forms shall regulate 
Our living calendar : 
We from to-day, my friend, will date 
20 The opening of the year. 

Love, now a universal birth. 
From heart to heart is stealing. 
From earth to man, from man to earth, 
— It is the hour of feeling. 

25 One moment now may give us more 
Than years of toiling reason : 



48 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Our minds shall drink at every pore 
Tlie spirit of the season. 

Some silent laws our hearts will make, 
30 Which they shall long obey : 
We for the year to come may 'take 
Our temper from to-day. 

And from the blessed power that rolls 
About, below, above, 
35 We '11 frame the measure of our souls : 
They shall be tuned to love. 

Then come, my sister ! come, I pray ; 
With speed put on your woodland dress, 
And bring no book : for this one day 
40 We '11 give to idleness. 

SONNET. 

Most sweet it is with unuplif ted eyes 
To pace the ground, if path be there or none. 
While a fair region round the traveller lies 
Which he forbears again to look upon ; 

5 Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 
The work of fancy, or some happy tone 
Of meditation, slipping in between 
The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 
If thought and love desert us, from that day 

10 Let us break off all commerce with the Muse : 
With thought and love companions of our way, 
Whate'er the senses take or may refuse. 
The mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews 
Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 



EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY. 49 



EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY. 

" Why, William, on that old gray stone, 
Thus for the length of half a clay, 
Why, William, sit you thus alone, 
And dream your time away ? 

5 " Where are your books ? — that light bequeathed 
To beings else forlorn and blind ! 
Up ! up ! and drink the spirit breathed 
From dead men to their kind. 

" You look round on your Mother Earth, 
10 As if she for no purpose bore you ; 
As if you were her first-born birth, 
And none had lived before you ! " 

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, 
When life was sweet, I knew not why, 
15 To me my good friend Matthew spake, 
And thus I made reply : — 

" The eye, — it cannot choose but see ; 
We cannot bid the year be still ; 
Our bodies feel, where'er they be, 
20 Against or with our will. 

" Nor less I deem that there are powers 
Which of themselves our minds impress ; 
That we can feed this mind of ours 
In a wise passiveness. 

25 " Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking, 



60 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

That nothing of itself will come, 
But we must still be seeking ? 

" Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, 
30 Conversing as I may, 
I sit upon this old gray stone, 
And dream my tiaie away." 



THE TABLES TURNED. 

AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 

Up ! up ! my friend, and quit your books. 
Or surely you '11 grow double : 
Up I up ! my friend, and clear your looks ; 
Why all this toil and trouble ? 

5 The sun, above the mountain's head, 
A freshening lustre mellow 
Through all the long, green fields has sj)read, 
His first sweet evening yellow. 

Books ! 't is a dull and endless strife : 
10 Come, hear the woodland linnet. 
How sweet his music ! on my life, 
There 's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings ! 
He, too, is no mean preacher : 
15 Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher. 

She has a world of ready wealth. 
Our minds and hearts to bless, — 



SONNET. 51 

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 
20 Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 

One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can. 

25 Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; 
Our meddling intellect 

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things, — 
We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art ; 
30 Close up those barren leaves ; 
Come fortli, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives. 



SONNET. 

The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 

5 This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
It moves us not. — Great God ! I 'd rather be 

10 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea. 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 



62 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

YARROW UNVISITED. 

See the various Poems the scene of which is laid upon the 
banks of the Yarrow ; in particular, the exquisite Ballad of 
Hamilton beginning, — 

"Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride, 
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow ! " 

From Stirling Castle we had seen 
The mazy Forth unravelled ; 
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, 
And with the Tweed had travelled ; 
6 And when we came to Clovenford, 
Then said my " icinsome Marroio^'' 
" Whate'er betide, we '11 turn aside, 
And see the braes of Yarrow." 

" Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town, 
10 Who have been buying, selling. 

Go back to Yarrow, 't is their own ; 

Each maiden to her dwelling ! 

On Yarrow's banks let herons feed, 

Hares couch, and rabbits burrow ! 
15 But we will downward with the Tweed, 

Nor turn aside to Yarrow. 

" There 's Galla Water, Leader Haughs, 
Both lying right before us ; 
And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed 
20 The lintwhites sing in chorus ; 
There 's pleasant Tiviot-dale, a land 
Made blithe with plough and harrow : 
Why throw away a needful day 
To go in search of Yarrow ? 

9. Frae. Scottish for /row. 



YARROW UNVISITED. 53 

25 " What 's Yarrow but a river bare, 

That glides the dark hills under ? 

There are a thousand such elsewhere, 

As worthy of your wonder." 

Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn ! 
30 My true-love sighed for sorrow ; 

And looked me in the face, to think 

I thus could speak of Yarrow ! 

" Oh, green," said I, " are Yarrow's holms. 

And sweet is Yarrow flowing ! 
35 Fair hangs the apple f rae the rock. 

But we will leave it growing. 

O'er hilly path, and open Strath, 

We '11 wander Scotland thorough ; 

But, though so near, we will not turn 
40 Into the dale of Yarrow. 

" Let beeves and homebred kine partake 
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow ; 
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake 
Float double, swan and shadow ! 
45 We will not see them ; will not sfo 
To-day, nor yet to-morrow ; 
Enough, if in our hearts we know 
There 's such a place as Yarrow. 

" Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown ! 
50 It must, or we shall rue it : 
We have a vision of our own ; 
Ah ! why should we undo it ? 
The treasured dreams of times long past. 
We '11 keep them, winsome Marrow ! 



54 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

55 For when we 're there, although 't is fair, 
'T will be another Yarrow ! 

" If care with freezing years should come, 
And wandering seem hut folly, — 
Should we be loth to stir from home, 
60 And yet be melancholy, — 
Should life be dull, and spirits low, 
'T will soothe us in our sorrow. 
That earth has something yet to show, 
The bonny holms of Yarrow ! " 



YARROW VISITED. 

SEPTEMBER, 1814. 

And is this — Yarrow ? — Tliis the stream 
Of which my fancy cherished. 
So faithfully, a waking dream ? 
An image that hath perished ! 
5 Oh, that some Minstrel's harp were near, 
To utter notes of gladness. 
And chase this silence from the air, 
That fills my heart with sadness ! 

Yet why ? — a silvery current flows 
10 With uncontrolled meanderings ; 

Nor have these eyes by greener hills 

Been soothed, in all my wanderings. 

And, through her depths. Saint Mary's Lake 

Is visibly delighted ; 
15 For not a feature of those hills 

Is in the mirror slighted. 



YARROW VISITED. 65 

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow vale, 
Save where that pearly whiteness 
Is round the rising sun diffused, 
20 A tender, hazy brightness ; 
Mild dawn of promise ! that excludes 
All profitless dejection ; 
Though not unwilling here to admit 
A pensive recollection. 

25 Where was it that the famous flower 

Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding ? 

His bed perchance was yon smooth mound 

On which the herd is feeding : 

And haply from this crystal j)ool, 
30 Now peaceful as the morning, 

The Water-wraith ascended thrice. 

And gave his doleful warning. 

Delicious is the lay that sings 
The haunts of happy lovers, 

35 The path that leads them to the grove, 
The leafy grove that covers : 
And pity sanctifies the verse 
That paints, by strength of sorrow. 
The unconquerable strength of love ; 

40 Bear witness, rueful Yarrow ! 

But thou, that didst appear so fair 
To fond imagination, 
Dost rival in the light of day 
Her delicate creation : 
45 Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 
A softness still and holy ; 



66 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

The grace of forest charms decayed, 
And pastoral melancholy. 

That region left, the vale unfolds 
50 Rich groves of lofty stature, 

With Yarrow winding through the pomp 

Of cidtivated nature ; 

And, rising from those lofty groves. 

Behold a ruin hoary ! 
55 The shattered front of Newark's towers 

Renowned in Border story. 

Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom, 
For sportive j^outh to stray in ; 
For manhood to enjoy his strength, 
60 And age to wear away in ! 
Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, 
A covert for protection 
Of tender thoughts, that nestle there, — 
The brood of chaste aifection. 

65 How sweet, on this autumnal day, 
The wild-wood fruits to gather, 
And on my true-love's forehead plant 
A crest of blooming heather ! 
And what if I inwreathed my own ! 

70 'T were no offence to reason ; 
The sober hills thus deck their brows 
To meet the wintry season. 

I see, — but not by sight alone, 
Loved Yarrow, have I won thee ; 
75 A ray of fancy still survives, — 
Her sunshine plays upon thee ! 



YARROW REVISITED. 57 

Thy ever-youthful waters keep 
A course of lively pleasure ; 
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe, 
60 Accordant to the measure. 

The vapors linger round the heights, 
They melt, and soon must vanish ; 
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine, — 
Sad thought, which I would banish, 
85 But that I know, where'er I go, 
Thy genuine image, Yarrow ! 
Will dwell with me, — to heighten joy, 
And cheer my mind in sorrow. 

YARROW REVISITED. 

In the autumn of 1831, my daughter and I set off from Rydal 
to visit Sir Walter Scott, before his departure for Italy. We 
reached Abbotsford on Monday. How sadly changed did I find 
him from the man I had seen so healthy, gay, and hopeful a 
few years before, when he said at the inn at Paterdale, in my 
presence, his daughter Anne also being there, with Mr. Lock- 
hart, my own wife and daughter, and Mr. Quillinan, " I mean 
to live till I am eighty,^' " and shall write as long as I live." 
Though we had none of us the least thought of the cloud of 
misfortune which was then going to break upon his head. I was 
startled, and almost shocked, at that bold saying, which could 
scarcely be uttered by such a man, sanguine as he was, without 
a momentary forgetfulness of the instability of human life. 

But to return to Abbotsford. On Tuesday morning, Sir Wal- 
ter Scott accompanied us, and most of the party, to Newark 
Castle, on the Yarrow. When we alighted from the carriages 
he walked pretty stoutly, and had great pleasure in revisiting 
these his favorite haunts. Of that excursion, the verses Yarroio 
Revisited are a memorial. 

The gallant youth, who may have gained, 
Or seeks, a " winsome Marrow," 



58 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Was but an infant in the lap 
When first I looked on Yarrow ; 
5 Once more, by Newark's castle-gate 
Long left without a warder, 

I stood, looked, listened, and with thee, 
Great Minstrel of the Border ! 

Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day, 
10 Their dignity installing 
In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves 

Were on the bough, or falling ; 
But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed, 
The forest to embolden ; 
15 Reddened the fiery hues, and shot 
Transparence through the golden. 

For busy thoughts the stream flowed on 

In foamy agitation ; 
And slept in many a crystal pool 
20 For quiet contemplation : 
No public and no private care 

The freeborn mind enthralling, 
We made a day of happy hours. 

Our hapi^y days recalling. 

25 Brisk youth appeared, the morn of youth, 
With freaks of graceful folly, — 
Life's temperate noon, her sober eve, 

Her night not melancholy ; 
Past, present, future, all appeared 
30 In harmony united. 
Like guests that meet, and some from far. 
By cordial love invited. 



YARROW REVISITED. 59 

And if, as Yarrow, through the woods 
And down the meadow ranging, 
35 Did meet us with unaltered face. 

Though we were changed and changing ; 
If, then, some natural shadows spread 

Our inward prospect over. 
The soul's deep valley was not slow 
40 Its brightness to recover. 

Eternal blessings on the Muse, 

And her divine employment ! 
The blameless Muse, who trains her sons 

For hope and calm enjoyment ; 
45 Albeit sickness, lingering yet, 

Has o'er their pillow brooded ; 
And care waylays their steps, — a Sprite 

Not easily eluded. 

For thee, O Scott ! compelled to change 
50 Green Eildon Hill and Cheviot 
For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes ; 

And leave thy Tweed and Teviot 
For mild Sorrento's breezy waves ; 
May classic Fancy, linking 
55 With native Fancy her fresh aid, 
Preserve thy heart from sinking ! 

Oh, while they minister to thee, 

Each vying with the other, 
May health return to mellow age, 
60 With strength, her venturous brother ; 
And Tiber, and each brook and rill 
Renowned in song and storv. 



60 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

With unimagined beauty shine, 
Nor lose one ray of glory ! 

65 For thou, upon a hundred streams, 
By tales of love and sorrow, 
Of faitliful love, undaunted truth. 
Hast shed the power of Yarrow ; 
And streams unknown, hills yet unseen, 
70 Wherever they invite thee. 
At parent Nature's grateful call. 
With gladness must requite thee. 

A gracious welcome shall be thine. 
Such looks of love and honor 
75 As thy own Yarrow gave to me 
When first I gazed upon her ; 
Beheld what I had feared to see, 

Unwilling to surrender 
Dreams treasured up from early days, 
80 The holy and the tender. 

And what, for this frail world, were all 

That mortals do or suffer, 
Did no responsive harp, no j^en. 

Memorial tribute offer ? 
85 Yea, what were mighty Nature's self? \ 

Her features, could they win us, 
Unhelped by the poetic voice 

That hourly speaks within us ? 

Nor deem that localized Romance 
90 Plays false with our affections ; 
Unsanctifies our tears, — made sport 
For fanciful dejections : 



DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 61 

Ah, no ! the visions of the past 
Sustain the heart in feeling 
95 Life as she is, — our changeful life, 
With friends and kindred dealing. 

Bear witness, ye, whose thoughts that day 
In Yarrow's groves were centred ; 

Who through the silent portal arch 
100 Of mouldering Newark entered ; 

And clomb the winding stair that once 
Too timidly was mounted 

By the "last Minstrel " (not the last !) 
Ere he his tale recounted. 

105 Flow on forever, Yarrow Stream ! 
Fidfil thy pensive duty, 
Well pleased that future bards should chant 

For simple hearts thy beauty ; 
To dream-light dear while yet unseen, 
no Dear to the common sunshine, 
And dearer still, as now I feel, 
To memory's shadowy moonshine ! 



ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
FROM ABBOTSFORD, FOR NAPLES. 

A TROUBLE, not of clouds, or weeping rain. 
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light 
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height : 
Spirits of power, assembled there, complain 
5 For kindred power departing from their sight ; 
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe 
strain, 



62 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
Lift up your hearts, ye mourners ! for the might 
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; 
10 Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue 
Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, 
Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true, 
Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea. 
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope ! 



TO A HIGHLAND GIRL. 

(at INVERSNEYDE, upon loch LOMOND.) 

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower 

Of beauty is thy earthly dower ! 

Twice seven consenting years have shed 

Their utmost bounty on thy head : 
5 And these gray rocks ; that household lawn 

Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn ; 

This fall of water that doth make 

A murmur near the silent lake ; 

This little bay ; a quiet road 
10 That holds in shelter thy abode ; 

In truth together do ye seem 

Like something fashioned in a dream ; 

Such forms as from their covert peep 

When earthly cares are laid asleep ! 
15 But, O fair creature ! in the light 

Of common day, so heavenly bright, 

I bless thee. Vision as thou art, 

I bless thee with a human heart ; 

God shield thee to thy latest years ! 



TO A HIGHLAND GIRL. 63 

20 Thee neither know I, nor thy peers ■ 
And yet my eyes are filled with tears. 

With earnest feeling I shall pi ay 

For thee when I am far away : 

For never saw I mien, or face, 
25 In which more plainly I could trace 

Benignity and homebred sense 

Eipening in perfect innocence. 

Here scattered, like a random seed, 

Kemote from men, thou dost not need 
30 The embarrassed look of shy distress. 

And maidenly shamefacedness : 

Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear 

The freedom of a mountaineer : 

A face with gladness overspread ! 
35 Soft smiles, by human kindness bred ! 

And seemliness complete, that sways 

Thy courtesies, about thee plays ; 

With no restraint, but such as springs 

From quick and eager visitings 
40 Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach 

Of thy few words of English speech : 

A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife 

That gives thy gestures grace and life ! 

So have I, not unmoved in mind, 
45 Seen birds of tempest-loving kind 

Thus beating up against the wind. 

What hand but would a garland cull 
For thee who art so beautiful ? 
Oh, happy pleasure ! here to dwell 
50 Beside thee in some heathy dell ; 



64 .VILLI AM WORDSWORTH. 

Adopt your liomely ways, and dress, 
A Shepherd, thou a Shepherdess ! 
But I could frame a wish for thee 
More like a grave reality : 

55 Thou art to me but as a wave 
Of the wild sea ; and I would have 
Some claim upon thee, if I could. 
Though but of common neighborhood. 
What joy to hear thee, and to see ! 

60 Thy elder brother I would be. 
Thy father, — anything to thee ! 

Now thanks to Heaven, that of its grace 
Hath led me to this lonely place. 
Joy have I had ; and going hence 

65 1 bear away my recompense. 
In sj)ots like these it is we prize 
Our memory, feel that she hath eyes : 
Then, why should I be loth to stir ? 
I feel this place was made for her ; 

70 To give new pleasure likQ the past, 
Continued long as life shall last. 
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart, 
Sweet Highland Girl ! from thee to part ; 
For I, methinks, till I grow old, 

75 As fair before me shall behold. 
As I do now, the cabin small. 
The lake, the bay, the waterfall ; 
And thee, the Spirit of them all ! 



STEPPING WESTWARD. 65 



STEPPING WESTWARD. 

While ray Fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side of 
Loch Ketterine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road to a 
hut where, in the course of our tour, we had been hospitably 
entertained some weeks before, we met, in one of the loneliest 
parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed women, one of 
whom said to us, by way of greeting, " What, you are stepping 
westward ? " 

" What^ you are stepping westward f " — " Yea''' 
— 'T would be a wildish destiny, 
If we, who thus together roam 
In a strange land, and far from home, 
5 Were in this place the guests of chance : 
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance, 
Though home or shelter he had none. 
With such a sky to lead him on ? 

The dewy ground was dark and cold ; 
10 Behind, all gloomy to behold ; 

And stepping westward seemed to be 

A kind of heavenly destiny : 

I liked the greeting ; 't was a sound 

Of something without place or bound ; 
15 And seemed to give me spiritual right 

To travel through that region bright. 

The voice was soft, and she who spake 
Was walking by her native lake : 
The salutation had to me 
20 The very sound of courtesy : 
Its power was felt ; and while my eye 
Was fixed upon the glowing sky, 



66 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

The echo of the voice inwrought 
A human sweetness with the thought 
25 Of travelling through the world that lay- 
Before me in my endless way. 



THE SOLITARY REAPER. 

Behold her, single in the field, 
Yon solitary Highland Lass ! 
Reaping and singing by herself ; 
Stop here, or gently pass ! 
5 Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
And sings a melancholy strain ; 
Oh, listen ! for the vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No nightingale did ever chant 
10 More welcome notes to weary bands 

Of travellers in some shady haunt. 

Among Arabian sands : 

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 

In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, 
15 Breaking the silence of the seas 

Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings ? - 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
20 And battles long ago : 
Or is it some more humble lay. 
Familiar matter of to-day ? 
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
That has been, and may be again? 



TO SLEEP. 67 

25 Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 

As if her song could have no ending ; 

I saw her singing at her work, 

And o'er the sickle bending ; — 

I listened, motionless and still ; 
30 And, as I mounted up the hill, 

The music in my heart I bore, 

Long after it was heard no more. 



SONNET, 



COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. 

Earth has not anything to show more fair : 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty : 
This City now doth, like a garment, wear 

5 The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky, 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
Never did sun more beautifully steej^, 

10 In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill ; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 
The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still ! 



TO SLEEP. 

A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by. 
One after one ; the sound of rain, and bees 
Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, 



68 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky ; 

5 1 have thought of all by turns, and yet to lie 
Sleepless I and soon the small birds' melodies 
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees ; 
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, 

10 And could not win thee. Sleep ! by any stealth ; 
So do not let me wear to-night away : 
Without thee what is all the morning's wealth ? 
Come, blessed barrier between day and day, 
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health! 



IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND 
FREE. 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, 
The holy time is quiet as a nun 
Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 

5 The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea. 
Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 
And doth with his eternal motion make 
A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 
Dear child ! dear girl ! that walkest with me here, 

10 If thou appear untouched by solemn thought. 
Thy nature is not therefore less divine : 
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ; 
And worshipp'st at the temple's inner shrine, 
God being with thee when we know it not. 



ELEGIAC STANZAS. 69 



ELEGIAC STANZAS, 

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN A STORM, 
PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT. 

I WAS thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile ! 
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee : 
I saw thee every day ; and all the while 
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea. 

5 So pure the sky, so quiet was the air ! 
So like, so very like, was day to day ! 
Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there ; 
It trembled, but it never passed away. 

Ho^w perfect was the calm ! it seemed no sleep ; 
10 No mood, which season takes away, or brings : 
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep 
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. 

Ah ! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand. 
To express what then I saw ; and add the gleam, 

15 The light that never was, on sea or land, 
The consecration, and the Poet's dream ; 

<f 
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile, 
Amid a world how different from this ! 
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile ; 

20 On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine 
Of peaceful years ; a chronicle of heaven ; — 
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine. 
The very sweetest had to thee been given. 



70 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

25 A picture had it been of lasting ease, 
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife ; 
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, 
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. 

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, 
30 Such picture would I at that time have made : 
And seen the soul of truth in every part, 
A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. 

So once it would have been, — 't is so no more ; 
I have submitted to a new control ; 
35 A power is gone, which nothing can restore ; 
A deep distress hath humanized my soul. 

Not for a moment could I now behold 
A smiling sea, and be what I have been : 
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old ; 
40 This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 

Then, Beaumont, friend I who would have been 

the friend. 
If he had lived, of him whom I deplore, 
This work of thine I blame not, but commend ; 
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. , 

45 Oh, 't is a passionate work I — yet wise and well, 
Well chosen is the spirit that is here ; 
That hulk which labors in the deadly swell. 
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear ! 

42. Wordsworth's brother John, who had lately been lost at 
sea. 



A POETS EPITAPH. 71 

And this huge castle, standing here sublime, 
50 1 love to see the look with which it braves. 
Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, 
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling 
waves. 

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone. 
Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind ! 
55 Such happiness, wherever it be known, 
Is to be pitied ; for 't is surely blind. 

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer. 
And frequent sights of what is to be borne ! 
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. — 
60 Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 



A POET'S EPITAPH. 

Art thou a Statist, in the van 
Of public conflicts trained and bred? 
First learn to love one livino^ man : 
Then mayst thou think upon the dead. 

A Lawyer art thou ? — draw not nigh ! 
Go, carry to some^ fitter place 
The keenness of that practised eye. 
The hardness of that sallow face. 

Art thou a Man of purple cheer ? 
A rosy Man, right plump to see ? 
Approach ! yet, Doctor, not too near : 
This grave no cushion is for thee. ■" 



72 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Or art thou one of gallant pride, 
A Soldier and no man of chaff ? 
15 Welcome ! — but lay thy sword aside, 
And lean upon a peasant's staff. 

Physician art thou ? ■ — one all eyes. 
Philosopher ! — a fingering slave, 
One that would peep and botanize 
20 Upon his mother's grave ? 

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece, 
OL, turn a'side, — and take, I pray, 
That he below may rest in peace. 
Thy ever-dwindling soul away ! 

25 A Moralist perchance appears ; 
Led, Heaven knows how ! to this poor sod ; 
And he has neither eyes nor ears ; 
Himself his world, and his own God ; 

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling 
30 Nor form, nor feeling, great or small ; 
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing. 
An intellectual All-in-all ! 

Shut close the door ; press down the latch ; 
Sleep in thy intellectual crust ; 
35 Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch 
Near this unprofitable dust. 

But who is he, with modest looks, 
And clad in homely russet-brown ? 
He murmurs near the running brooks 
40 A music sweeter than their own. 



UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES HOGG. 73 

He is retired as noontide dew, 
Or fountain in a noonday grove ; 
And you must love him, ere to you 
He will seem worthy of your love. 

45 The outward shows of sky and earth, 
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ; 
And impulses of deeper birth 
Have come to him in solitude. 

In common things that round us lie 
50 Some random truths he can impart. 
The harvest of a quiet eye. 
That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 

But he is weak ; both Man and Boy, 
Hath been an idler in the land, 
55 Contented if he might enjoy 
The things which others understand. 

— Come hither in thy hour of strength ; 
Come, weak as is a breaking wave ! 
Here stretch thy body at full length ; 
60 Or build thy house upon this grave. 



EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH 
OF JAMES HOGG. 

When first, descending from the moorlands, 

I saw the stream of Yarrow glide 

Along a bare and open valley. 

The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. 

4. James Hog-g was a shepherd in the Vale of Ettrick, who 
had a sHght but genuine poetic gift. He was a friend of Walter 
Scott's. 



74 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

5 When last along its banks I wandered, 
Through groves that had begun to shed 
Then- golden leaves upon the pathways, 
My steps the Border-minstrel led. 



The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, 
10 'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies ; 
And death upon the braes of Yarrow 
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes ; 

Nor has the rolling year twice measured, 
From sign to sign, its steadfast course, 
15 Since every mortal power of Coleridge 
Was frozen at its marvellous source ; 

The rapt one, of the godlike forehead, 
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth ; 
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle, 
20 Has vanished from his lonely hearth. 

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits. 
Or waves that own no curbing hand, 
How fast has brother followed brother, 
From sunshine to the sunless land ! 

25 Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber 
Were earlier raised, remain to hear 
A timid voice, that asks in whispers, 
" Who next will droj) and disappear?" 

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, 
30 Like London with its own black wreath. 
On which, with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking, 
I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath. 



RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. 75 

As if but yesterday departed, 
Thou too art gone before ; but why, 
35 O'er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, 
Should frail survivors heave a sigh ? 

Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, 
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep ; 
For her who, ere her summer faded, 
40 Has sunk into a breathless sleep. 

No more of old romantic sorrows. 

For slaughtered youth or love-lorn maid ! 

With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten, 

And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead. 



RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. 

There was a roaring in the wind all night ; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods ; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright ; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods ; 
5 Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods ; 
The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters ; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. 

All things that love the sun are out of doors ; 
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth ; 
10 The grass is bright with rain-drops ; — on the moors 
The hare is running races in her mirth ; 
And with her feet she from the plashy earth 
Raises a mist ; that, glittering in the sun, 
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. 
39. Felicia Hemans. 



76 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

15 1 was a Traveller then upon the moor ; 

I saw the hare that raced about with joy ; 

I heard the woods and distant waters roar ; 

Or heard them not, as happy as a boy : 

The pleasant season did my heart employ : 
20 My old remembrances went from me wholly ; 

And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy. 

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might 
Of joy in minds that can no further go, 
As high as we have mounted in delight 
25 In our dejection do we sink as low ; 
To me that morning did it happen so ; 
And fears and fancies thick upon me came ; 
Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor 
could name. 

I heard the skylark warbling in the sky ; 
30 And I bethought me of the playful hare : 

Even such a happy child of earth am I ; 

Even as these blissful creatures do I fare ; 

Far from the world I walk, and all from care ; 

But there may come another day to me, — 
35 Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. 

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought. 
As if life's business were a summer mood ; 
As if all needful things would come unsought 
To genial faith, still rich in genial good ; 
40 But how can he exj^ect that others should 
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call 
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at 
all? 



RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. 11 

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, 
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride ; 
45 Of him who walked in glory and in joy, 
Following his plough, along the mountain-side : 
By our own spirits we are deified : 
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness ; 
But thereof come in the end despondency and mad- 
ness. 

5u Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, 
A leading from above, a something given, 
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place. 
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven. 
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven, 

55 1 saw a man before me unawares : 
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hairs. 

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 
Couched on the bald top of an eminence. 
Wonder to all who do the same espy, 
60 By what means it could thither come, and whence : 
So that it seems a thing endued with sense ; — 
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf 
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself ; — 

Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead, 
65 Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age : 
His body was bent double, feet and head 
Coming together in life's pilgrimage ; 
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage 
Of sickness felt by him in times long past, 
70 A more than human weight upon his frame had 
cast. 

45. Robert Burns. 



78 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, 
Upon a long gvny staff of shaven wood : 
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace. 
Upon the margin of that moorish flood 
75 Motionless as a clond the old man stood. 
That heareth not the loud winds when they call, 
And moveth all together, if it move at all. 

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond 
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look 
80 Upon that muddy water, which he conned. 
As if he had been reading in a book : 
And now a stranger's privilege I took ; 
And, drawing to his side, to him did say, 
" This morning gives us promise of a glorious day." 

85 A gentle answer did the old man make. 
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew ; 
And him with further words I thus bespake : 
" What occupation do you there pursue ? 
This is a lonesome place for one like you." 

90 Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet vivid eyes. 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest. 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest, — 
95 Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men ; a stately speech ; 
Such as grave livers do in Scotland use. 
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. 

He told, that to these waters he had come 
100 To gather leeches, being old and poor : 



RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. 79 

Employment hazardous and wearisome ! 
And he had many hardships to endure : 
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor ; 
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance ; 
105 And in this way he gained an honest maintenance. 

The old man still stood talking by my side ; 
But now his voice to me was like a stream 
Scarce heard ; nor word from word could I divide ; 
And the whole body of the man did seem 
no Like one whom I had met with in a dream ; 
Or like a man from some far region sent. 
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment. 

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills 
And hope that is unwilling to be fed ; 
ns Cold, pain, and labor, and all fleshly ills ; 
And mighty poets in their misery dead. 
— Perplexed, and longing to be comforted, 
My question eagerly did I renew, 
" How is it that you live, and what is it you do ? " 

120 He with a smile did then his words repeat ; 
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide 
He travelled ; stirring thus about his feet 
The waters of the pools where they abide. 
" Once I could meet with them on every side ; 

125 But they have dwindled long by slow decay ; 

Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may." 

While he was talking thus, the lonely place. 

The old man's shape, and speech, — all troubled 

me: 
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace 



80 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

130 About the weary moors continually, 
Wandering about alone and silently. 
While I these thoughts within myself pursued, 
He, having made a pause, the same discourse re- 
newed. 

And soon with this he other matter blended, 
135 Cheerfully uttered, with demeanor kind. 

But stately in the main ; and when he ended, 

I could have laughed myself to scorn, to find 

In that decrepit man so firm a mind. 

" God," said I, "be my help and stay secure ; 
140 1 '11 think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor ! " 

ODE TO DUTY. 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God ! 
O Duty ! if that name thou love, 
Who art a light to guide, a rod 
To check the erring, and reprove 
6 Thou, who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe. 
From vain temptations dost set free, 
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity ! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 
10 Be on them ; who, in love and truth. 

Where no misgiving is, rely 

Upon the genial sense of youth : 

Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot ; 

Who do thy work, and know it not : 
15 Oh! if through confidence misplaced 

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power ! around 
them cast. 



ODE TO DUTY. 81 

Serene will be our days and bright, 
And bappy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring light, 
20 And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Even now, who, not unwisely bold, 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need. 

25 1, loving freedom, and untried. 

No sport of every random gust. 

Yet being to myself a guide. 

Too blindly have reposed my trust : 

And oft, when in my heart was heard 
so Thy timely mandate, I deferred 

The task, in smoother walks to stray ; 

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I 
may. 

Through no disturbance of my soul, 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 

35 1 supplicate for thy control ; 
But in the quietness of thought : 
Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
I feel the weight of chance-desires : 
My hopes no more must change their name, 

40 1 long for a repose that ever is the same. 

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 
45 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds. 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 



82 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Thou dost preserve tlie stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are 
fresh and strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
50 1 call thee : I myself commend 

Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 

Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 

Give unto me, made lowly wise, 

The spirit of self-sacrifice : 
55 The confidence of reason give ; 

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me 
live. 



CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR. 

Many elements of tlie character here portrayed were found in 
my brother John, who perished by shipwreck. His messmates 
used to call him the Philosopher, from which it may be inferred 
that the qualities and dispositions I allude to had not escaped 
their notice. He greatly valued moral and religious instruction 
for youth, as tending to make good sailors. The best, he used 
to say, came from Scotland ; the next to them, from the North 
of England, especially from Westmoreland and Cumberland, 
where, thanks to the piety and local attachments of our ances- 
tors, endowed, or, as they are called, free schools, abound. 

Who is the happy Warrior ? Who is he 
That every man in arms should wish to be ? 
— It is the generous spirit, who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
5 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought : 
Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
That makes the path before him always bright : 
Who, with a natural instinct to discern 



CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR. 83 

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn ; 

10 Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 
But makes his moral being his prime care ; 
Who, doomed to go in company with pain. 
And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train ! 
Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 

15 In face of these doth exercise a power 
Which is our human nature's highest dower ; 
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves 
Of their bad influence, and their good receives : 
By objects, which might force the soul to abate 

20 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate ; 
Is placable, — because occasions rise 
So often that demand such sacrifice ; 
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, 
As tempted more ; more able to endure, 

25 As more exposed to suffering and distress ; 
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness : 
— 'T is he whose law is reason ; who depends 
Upon that law as on the best of friends ; 
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still 

30 To evil for a guard against worse ill. 
And what in quality or act is best 
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest ; 
He labors good on good to fix, and owes 
To virtue every triumph that he knows : 

35 — Who, if he rise to station of command, 
Rises by open means ; and there will stand 
On honorable terms, or else retire, 
And in himself possess his own desire : 
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 

40 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; 
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state ; 



84 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

Wliom they must follow, on whose head must fall, 
Like showers of manna, if they come at all : 

45 Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, 
Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
A constant influence, a peculiar grace ; 
But who, if he be called upon to face 
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 

50 Great issues, good or .bad for human kind. 
Is happy as a lover ; and attired 
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired ; 
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw ; 

55 Or if an unexpected call succeed, 
Come when it will, is equal to the need : 
— He who, though thus endued as with a sense 
And faculty for storm and turbulence. 
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans 

60 To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes ; 
Sweet images ! which, wheresoe'er he be, 
Are at his heart ; and such fidelity 
It is his darling passion to approve ; 
More brave for this, that he hath much to love : — 

65 'T is, finally, the man, who, lifted high, 
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye. 
Or left unthought of in obscurity, — ■ 
Who, with a toward or untoward lot, 
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, 

70 Plays, in the many games of life, that one 
Where what he most doth value must be won : 
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay. 
Nor thought of tender happiness betray ; 
Who, not content that former worth stand fast, 

75 Looks forward, persevering to the last. 
From well to better, daily self-surpast : 



MY HEART LEAPS UP. 85 

Who, whether praise o£ him must walk the earth 
Forever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, 

80 And leave a dead, unprofitable name, 
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause ; 
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause, — 
This is the happy Warrior ; this is he 

85 That every man in arms should wish to be. 



MY HEART LEAPS UP. 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky : 
So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 

Or let me die ! 
The child is father of the man ; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 



ODE: 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOL- 
LECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

Wordsworth used the closing lines of the poem 
last given as a motto to his great Ode, and in his pref- 
ace he says : " To the attentive and competent reader, 
the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may 
be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or 
experiences of my own mind, on which the structure 
of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult 
for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death 
as a state applicable to my own being. I have said 
elsewhere 

'A simple Child, 
That lightly draws its breath, 
And feels its life in every limb. 
What should it know of death ? ' 

But it was not so much from the source of animal 
vivacity that my difficulty came, as from a sense of 
the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used 
to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and 
almost persuade myself that, whatever might become 
of others, I should be translated in something of the 
same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to 
this, I was often unable to think of external things as 
having external existence, and I communed with all 
that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent 
in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 87 

going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to 
recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. 
At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later 
periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason 
,to do, a subjugation of an opposite character. ... To 
that dream-like vividness and splendor which invest 
objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if 
he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need 
not dwell upon it here ; but having in the poem re- 
garded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of 
existence, I think it right to protest against a conclu- 
sion, which has given pain to some good and pious 
persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. - It is 
far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith 
as more than an element in our instincts of immor- 
tality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea 
is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there 
to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an anal- 
ogy in its favor. Accordingly, a preexistent state 
has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, 
and among all persons acquainted with classic litera- 
ture is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. 
Archimedes said that he could move the world if he 
had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has 
not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of 
his own mind ? Having to wield some of its elements 
when I was impelled to write this poem on the ' Im- 
mortality of the Soul,' I took hold of the notion of 
preexistence as having sufficient foundation in human- 
ity for authorizing me to make for my purpose* the 
best use of it 1 could as a Poet." 

Po^ibly Wordsworth has laid too much stress on 
the part which this theory of preexistence plays in 
the Ode. His artistic presentation is better than his 



88 INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 

philosophizing. The confusion into which some have 
been cast by the Ode arises from their bringing to the 
idea of immortality the time conception ; they con- 
ceive the poet to be hinting of an indefinite time ante- 
dating the child's birth, an indefinite time extending 
beyond the man's death, whereas Wordsworth's con 
ception of immortality rests in the indestructibility ot 
spirit by any temporal or earthly conditions, — an in- 
destructibility which even implies an absence of be- 
ginning as well as of ending. 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy," 

he declares. It is the investment of this visible life 
by an unseen, unfelt, yet real spiritual presence for 
which he contends, and he maintains that the inmost 
consciousness of childhood bears witness to this truth ; 
this consciousness fades as the earthly life penetrates 
the soul, yet it is there, and recurs in sudden mo- 
ments. 

In printing the Ode, Wordsworth's capitalizing, 
which was partly a fashion of the day and partly char- 
acteristic of his own habit of mind, has been followed. 



ODE. 



There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
5 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — 
Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
By night or day, 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

II. 

10 The Eainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the Rose ; 
The Moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 
Waters on a starry night 
15 Are beautiful and fair; 

The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
But yet I know where'er I go, 
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 

III. 

V, while the birds thus sing a joyous song. 
And while the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound, 
me alone there came a thought of grief : 



90 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 
And I again am strong : 
25 The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; 
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; 
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep. 
And all the earth is gay ; 
30 Land and sea 

Give themselves up to jollity. 
And with the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday ; — 
Thou Child of Joy, 
35 Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 
Shepherd-boy ! 

IV. 

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make ; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; 
My heart is at your festival, 
40 My head hath its coronal. 

The fulness of your bliss, I feel, I feel it all. 
O evil day ! if I were sullen 
While Earth herself is adorning. 
This sweet May morning, 
46 And the Children are culling 

On every side. 
In a thousand valleys far and wide. 
Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, 
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm : — 
50 I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! 

— But there 's a Tree, of many, one, 
A single Field which I have looked upon, 
Both of them speak of something that is gone : 



ODE. 91 

The pansy at my feet 
55 Doth the same tale repeat : 

Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 

V. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
60 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And Cometh from afar : 
Not in entire forgetfulness. 
And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
65 From God, who is our home : 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 
70 He sees it in his joy ; 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended ; 
75 At length the Man perceives it die away. 
And fade into the light of common day. 

VI. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind. 
And, even with something of a Mother's mind, 
80 And no unworthy aim. 

The homely Nurse doth all she can 
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known. 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 



92 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

VII. 

s-5 Behold tlie Child among his new-bori blisses, 
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size ! 
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies. 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
With light upon him from his father's eyes ! 
90 See, at his feet, some little plan or chart. 
Some fragment from his dream of human life. 
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ; 
A wedding or a festival, 
A mourning or a funeral ; 
95 And this hath now his heart. 

And unto this he frames his song : 
Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 
But it will not be long 
100 Ere this be thi^own aside. 

And with new joy and pride 
The little Actor cons another part ; 
Filling from time to time his " humorous stage " 
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 
105 That Life brings with her in her equipage ; 
As if his whole vocation 
Were endless imitation. 

VIII. 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 
Thy Soul's immensity ; 
no Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind. 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep. 
Haunted forever by the eternal mind, — 
Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest ! 
113 On whom those truths do rest, 



ODE. 93 

Wliich we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; 
Thou, over /horn thy Immortality 
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, 

120 A Presence Avhich is not to be put by ; 
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 

125 Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight. 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! 

IX. 

O joy ! that in our embers 
130 Is something that doth live, 

That Nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction : not indeed 
135 For that which is most worthy to be blest ; 
I delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Kji Childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope stiU fluttering in his breast : 
Not for these I raise 
Ko The song of thanks and praise ; 

But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things. 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a Creature 
145 Moving about in worlds not realized. 

High instincts before which our mortal Nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : 



94 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

But for those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 
150 Which, be they what they may, 

Are yet the fountain light of all our day. 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing , 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
155 Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake, 
To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 

Nor Man nor Boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
160 Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 

Hence in a season of calm weather, 
Though inland far we be. 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, 
16.5 Can in a moment travel thither. 
And see the Children sport upon the shore. 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 



Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! 
And let the young Lambs bound 
170 As to the tabor's sound ! 

We in thought will join your throng. 
Ye that pipe and ye that play. 
Ye that through your hearts to-day 
Feel the gladness of the May ! 
175 What though the radiance which was once so 
bright 
Be now forever taken from my sight. 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 



ODE. 95 

We will grieve not, rather find 
180 Strength in what remains behind ; 

In the primal sympathy 
■ Which, having been, must ever be ; 
In the soothing thoughts that spring 
Out of human suffering ; 
135 In the faith that looks through death, 

In years that bring the philosoj)hic mind. 

XI. 

And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 
Forebode not any severing of our loves I 
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; 

190 1 only have relinquished one delight 
To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, 
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; 
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day 

195 Is lovely yet ; 

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 

200 Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
• Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 



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